Spain, v. 2 (of 2)

by Edmondo De Amicis

We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or, vulgarly, the Tower of the Ambassadors. The interior forms two halls, the first of which is called the Hall of the Barca, and takes its name either from the fact that it is shaped like a boat or because it was called by the Moors the Hall of Baraka, or Blessing, a word which might have been contracted by the people into barca (a boat.) This hall hardly seems the work of human hands: it is all a vast network of tracery in the form of garlands, rosettes, boughs of trees, and leaves, covering the vaulted ceiling, the arches, and the walls in every part and in every way—closely twining, checkered, climbing higher and higher, and yet marvellously distinct and combined in such a manner that the parts are presented to the eye altogether at a single glance, affording a spectacle of dazzling magnificence and enchanting grace. I approached one of the walls, fixed my eyes upon the extreme point of an arabesque, and tried to follow its windings and turnings: it was impossible; my eye was lost, my mind confused, and all the arabesques from pavement to ceiling seemed to be moving and blending, as if to conceal the thread of their inextricable network. You may make an effort not to look around, to centre your whole attention upon a single spot of the wall, to scan it closely and follow the thread with your finger: it is futile; in a moment the tracery is a tangled skein, a veil steals between you and the wall, and your arm falls. The wall seems woven like a web, wrought like brocade, netted like lace, and veined like a leaf; one cannot look at it closely nor fix its design in one's mind: it would be like trying to count the ants in an anthill: one must be content to look at the walls with a wandering glance, then to rest and look again later, and then to think of something else and talk. After I had looked around a little with the air of a man overcome with vertigo rather than admiration, I turned toward Gongora, so that he might read in my face what I would have spoken.

"Let us enter the other pile of ruins," he answered with a smile as he drew me into the great Hall of the Ambassadors, which fills all the interior of the tower, for, really, the Hall of the Barca belongs to a little building which does not form a part of the tower, although it is joined to it. The tower is square in form, spacious, and lighted with nine great arched windows in the form of doors, which present almost the appearance of so many alcoves, so great is the thickness of the wall; each one is divided down the middle toward the outside by a little marble column that supports two beautiful arches surmounted in their turn by two little arched windows. The walls are covered with mosaics and arabesques indescribably delicate and multiform, and with innumerable inscriptions extending like wide embroidered ribbons over the arches of the windows, up the massive cornices, along the friezes, and around the niches where once stood vases full of flowers and perfumed water. The ceiling, which rises to a great height, is inlaid with cedar-wood, white, gold, and azure, joined together in circles, stars, and crowns, and forming many little arches, cells, and vaulted windows, through which falls a wavering light, and from the cornice which joins the ceiling to the walls hang tablets of stucco-work cut in facets chiselled and moulded like stalactites and bunches of flowers. The throne stood at the central window on the side opposite the door of entrance. From the windows on that side one enjoys a stupendous view of the valley of the Darro, deep and silent, as if it too felt the fascination of the Alhambra's grandeur; from the windows on the other two sides one sees the boundary-wall and the towers of the fortress; and through the entrance the light arches of the Court of the Myrtles in the distance and the water of the basin, which reflects the blue of the sky.

"Well!" Gongora demanded; "was it worth dreaming of the Alhambra for three hundred and sixty-five nights?"

"There is a strange thought passing through my brain at this moment," I replied. "That court as it looks from here, that hall, those windows, those colors, everything that surrounds me, seems familiar; it seems to correspond with a picture which I have carried in my head I know not how long and I know not in what manner, confused with a thousand other things, perhaps born of a dream—how should I know? When I was sixteen years old I was a lover, and the young girl and I alone in a garden in the shade of a summer-house, as we gazed in each other's eyes, uttered unconsciously a cry of joy that stirred our blood as if it had come from the mouth of a third person who had discovered our secret. Well, since that time I have often longed to be a king and to have a palace; but in giving form to that desire my imagination did not rest merely in the grand gilded palaces of our country; it flew to distant lands, and there on the summit of a lofty mountain reared a castle of its own in which everything was small and graceful and illumined by a mysterious light; and there were long suites of rooms adorned with a thousand fanciful and delicate ornaments, with windows through which we two alone might look, and little columns behind which my little one might almost hide her face playfully as she listened to my step approaching from hall to hall, or heard my voice mingled with the murmur of the fountains in the garden. All unconsciously, in building that castle in fantasy, I was building the Alhambra; in those moments I imagined something like these halls, these windows, and this court that we see before us—so similar, indeed, that the more I look around the better I remember and seem to recognize the place just as I have seen it a thousand times. All lovers dream a little of the Alhambra, and if they were able to reproduce all their dreams in line and color, they would make pictures that would amaze us by their likeness to all one sees here. This architecture does not express power, glory, and grandeur; it expresses love and passion—love with its mysteries, its caprices, its fervor, its bursts of God-given gratitude; passion with its melancholy and its silences. There is, then, a close connection, a harmony, between the beauty of this Alhambra and the souls of those who have loved at sixteen, when longings are but dreams and visions. And hence arises the indescribable fascination exercised by this beauty, and hence the Alhambra, although deserted and ruined as it is, is still the most enchanting castle in the world, and to the end of time visitors will leave it with a tear. For in parting with the Alhambra we bid a last adieu to the most beautiful dreams of youth revived among these walls for the last time. We bid adieu to faces unspeakably dear that have broken the oblivion of many years to stand beside us a last time by the little columns of these windows. We bid adieu to all the fancies of youth. We bid adieu to that love which will never live again."

Fountain in the Court of Lions, Alhambra

"It is true," answered my friend, "but what will you say when you have seen the Court of the Lions? Come, let us hurry."

We left the tower with hasty steps, crossed the Court of Myrtles, and came to a little door opposite the door of entrance.

"Stop!" cried Gongora.

I stopped.